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1553.] to be 'contrary to all law, reason, charity, right, and conscience.' Their jurisdiction was closed, and the foreign trade was declared free.

In the first half of the century the old-established London houses had suffered from the competition; and they took advantage of the necessities of an embarrassed Government to make an effort to recover their privileges.

The reputation of English goods had unquestionably suffered in the foreign markets; and the fraudulent manufactures, which were in reality the natural growth of an age of infidelity, they represented as the effect of a disorganized intrusion of unauthorized persons into 'the feat and mystery' of merchandise.

The fall of the exchange, notoriously due to the debasement of the currency, they attributed with equal injustice to the same cause; and Northumberland, to gain the support of so strong a body, and too happy to rest on others the consequences of his own misdoings, undertook, if possible, to gratify them.